“Maybe. He’s supposed to call in a couple of days because Evri is a supplier. He buys up the product, AKA the people, and then ships them on to their true buyers.”
“Buyer protection even in human trafficking? Disgusting.”
“Exactly.” She sighs deeply and her shoulders slump. “But it’s a start. When the call comes through, we have to do everything we can to find out as much as we can. Whoever is calling is the next stepping stone.”
And the next, and the next until we finally reach the head of the snake. “Thanks for taking over in there.”
Faina looks at me with such a sweet, open expression that I have the urge to reach out and take her hand. I resist. Barely.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“We’re in this together and instead I ran like?—”
“Hey.” She silences me by placing her hand on my wrist. “You went through hell.”
“You don’t think it’s fucked that I can’t stomach that shit anymore?”
“I think it’s fucked that you were hurt so badly that you can’t stomach it anymore,” she clarifies. “Anyone in your shoes would feel the same. People change. Life affects us and builds us differently, but I’m here for that shit, Cian. Okay? You went through some serious shit so I can do this hard shit.”
“Then why do I feel like some kind of dead weight?”
“Maybe you just can’t handle an older woman in charge.” Faina smirks and lightly elbows me as we laugh. “But you’ve been running on 120 percent ever since you woke up in that hospital. Maybe it just feels weird to have help, but you can trust me, Cian. I can take care of the dark shit and you watch my back.”
I can trust her.
Usually, that would come without hesitation, but she’s right, I’m so on edge these days that it feels like everything is a cloaked threat waiting to take me out.
“Alright,” I say, making the choice. “I trust you. So, when’s the call?”
11
FAINA
Keeping Evri alive until the phone call proves easier said than done. He refuses to eat and won’t drink unless we waterboard him, which I do with Cian out of the room. The last thing I need is to accidentally trigger the man I’m trying to help.
Evri’s stubbornness raises more questions than answers about Hexagon. What kind of faceless organization creates such unwavering loyalty in men on the cusp of dying? It’s the level of loyalty I’d expect to see high up in any Mafia family, but not in the ground-level grunts. Evri keeps his mouth wired shut as if he’s a general holding every secret, and it’s a wonder we even managed to get anything out of him at all. Finally, the scheduled call with Hawk arrives and I walk into the small bathroom where we’ve been holding Evri while the mobile buzzes in my hand.
“Let’s keep this short, Evri. I’m not against—holy shit! Cian!” The phone slips from my hand as I throw myself toward Evri. Both my hands slam into his blood-soaked face as his upper teeth sink deep into his tongue. The gurgling, drowning noises of pain that bubble from him quickly grow muted as his eyelids droop and he sags forward into me.
“Faina, what’s wrong—holy shit!” Cian skids to a stop in the doorway and looks on in horror as I drag Evri to the floor. Whatever Hexagon has on him is worth killing himself by biting off his own tongue. I snatch towels off the wall and washcloths from the rack in the bathtub, but there’s far too much blood.
He’s drowning in it and fading by the second while his phone continues to buzz on the floor.
“Answer it!” I gasp desperately.
“What?”
“You have to answer it, Cian. It’s our only lead and it’s painfully obvious that I’m not a man.”
“Shit!” Cian snatches up the phone and stares at it like it’s morphing into something terrible right before his very eyes, then he ends the jingling music with a press of a button and rests it against his ear. “What?” Cian says, making his voice as gruff as he can to match Evri’s.
Evri closes one bloodied hand weakly around my wrist. Our eyes meet, and I watch the light fade from his grey eyes until there’s nothing but dead silence staring back at me. His fingers fall limp and his hand drops off to the side.
He’s dead.
Part of me still tries to bring him back by soaking up the blood sluggishly leaking from his mouth, but there’s nothing to save. He’s gone. Behind me, Cian grunts and answers in one-word increments trying to imitate what we heard from Evri during our short conversations. Then he hangs up and silence falls in the bathroom, broken briefly by my own panting.
“Is he…?”
